Wow! This was received extremely well – I'm very pleased. Many, many thanks to everyone who was kind enough to review: you're amazing! To answer some of the questions in the reviews: Zoe's name is still Zoe, and not the name she gave her Mary Sue character, and she'll worry about her parents eventually, but there's an explanation for why she can be at Hogwarts and not have her family wonder. And Lady Pyrefly, I think you must have read my old fic 'Psychic BS', and then put me on your author alert. I removed it, obviously, but I'm glad you found this one, too!

I hope that helps, and that all of you enjoy this chapter! Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, and are used by me with lots of respect.

Certifiably Frightening

Daniel Radcliffe vs. Harry Potter

Zoe was never one to stay enthralled with the same view for very long, and the walls of the Hospital Wing were no exception. A few students had come in, but none of them were canon characters she recognized, and none of their ailments were interesting at all. In fact, the closest one had gotten to fascinating was a boy who had leeks sprouting out of his ears…but that was really more disgusting than anything else. Needless to say, she was grateful when Professor McGonagall came to collect her the next morning so she could show Zoe to her dormitory.

The stern, bespectacled woman regarded her indifferently, choosing to nod curtly rather than smile at the newcomer. She strode swiftly through the nearly empty corridors (only a few ghosts drifted by, glancing briefly at Zoe as they went) and up a few flights of stairs, Zoe barely managing to keep up with her even at a trot.

"Hey," she puffed as McGonagall started up yet another staircase, "What floor is the common room on, anyway?"

"The seventh," the professor responded, arching an eyebrow at Zoe, who had groaned loudly in displeasure. The seventh floor? That was a lot of stairs! And McGonagall was flying up them like they were nothing! She had to be getting up there in years, but she was in better shape than Zoe herself, which was frankly embarrassing.

"How do you find your way around?" she gasped once she'd reached a landing, stumbling forward to catch up with McGonagall, who was practically halfway down the next hallway already.

"You learn the layout of the school fairly quickly," McGonagall told her dismissively without slowing her stride. Zoe panted beside her as they turned left, finally coming to a halt in front of an enormous portrait of an equally enormous lady, all decked out in the frilliest, pinkest dress she'd ever seen. If she hadn't been gasping for breath, she might have made a catty remark.

It was a good thing she didn't, however, since the fat lady in the portrait was perfectly capable of taking offense, and making her angry wasn't the best way to try to gain entrance into the common room.

"Good morning, Professor McGonagall," the Fat Lady said politely, though her tone grew more authoritative when she asked, "Password?"

"Crimson banners," McGonagall answered easily, and the portrait swung open to admit them both. Zoe's eyes went wide at the sight of the common room.

It was very large, comfortable-looking, and decorated in red and gold, of course. In the early morning the fire had burned down low, but the sunlight seeping in through the windows illuminated the circular room nicely. Two polished, mahogany doors were set on opposite sides of the room, and McGonagall gestured towards the one to the left.

"That staircase leads to your dormitory," she told Zoe. "Look for the fourth years' door, and your things will be in that room by your bed.

Today is a Monday, by the way" McGonagall continued as she began to head towards the portrait hole again, "In case you were disoriented."

Zoe blinked; she had, in fact, forgotten what day it was. It must be earlier than she thought if everyone was still asleep.

"Thanks, Professor," she blurted out as McGonagall stepped through the portrait hole. She earned another short nod, and the Fat Lady's picture closed over the entrance again.

Monday. It made sense, of course – she had been drawn into this world two days ago, on a Saturday. She'd been out cold for the better part of Sunday, and then she'd stayed overnight. Perfectly logical.

"I can't believe I've already wasted so much time," Zoe muttered. "I could've explored a little and met some people, but nooo…I had to take a disgusting potion and stay in the Hospital Wing."

She remembered the leeks and shuddered. What on earth had that boy done to have something like that happen to him? There'd better not be anything like that happening to her.

She wound a long, light blonde strand of curly hair around her index finger, studying it with renewed happiness. Of all the perfect things that could have happened to her…good thing she had made Zephyra so pretty! Harry would fall at her feet!

Smiling widely at the prospect, she opened the door that led to the girls' dorms, revealing a stone staircase.

"What, more stairs?" she wondered aloud with a frown. Apparently the inhabitants of Hogwarts had something of a fetish for them. She wondered vaguely if she should introduce the concept of escalators. She climbed up the steps and found herself in a hallway. She located the door that led to the fourth years' dorm and pushed it open gently.

The inhabitants of the room were all asleep, presumably: the hangings around their beds were all closed. Her bed was at the far end of the room, next to a window that looked down on the wide, sprawling grounds and parts of the Forbidden Forest. She planned to ignore the 'Forbidden' part of the title. After all, what good was getting thrown into the world of Harry Potter without a little adventure? It wasn't like there was anything that dangerous, in there, right?

For anyone else, a little conscience-y voice would have answered 'Wrong'. Zoe, however, had her question answered only with silence, which satisfied her well enough.

She moved away from the window and sat on her bed, banging her heel carelessly against the footboard. Her trunk was sitting by her nightstand. She realized suddenly that she should probably change her clothes: the ones she was wearing were rumpled and dirty from her collision with the floor yesterday. She opened her trunk, the lid of which hit the wall with a loud bang. Instantly there was rustling behind several of the curtains, and a few irritated faces poked out.

"Keep it down," a girl with short, dark hair and rounded features said sharply. "It's too early for that."

Zoe, however, was distracted by the sight of a girl with tangly, bright red hair and ginger eyes.

"Ginny?" she asked disbelievingly. Was she really in the same dorm as GINNY WEASLEY, sister of RON WEASLEY, best friend of HARRY POTTER?

Ginny frowned at her in confusion.

"Do I know you?"

There was a pause in which Ginny took in her appearance, and realization spread across her freckled face. She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Oh. You're one of them."

"Huh?"

'One of them'? What was she talking about? The other girls, those who had bothered to look for the source of the disturbance, looked like they understood, and with a disgusted shake of her head the girl who had told her to be quiet earlier wrenched the hangings around her bed shut. Another girl with mousy brown hair and pale blue eyes sighed in imitation of Ginny before retreating a bit more gently.

"What do you mean?" Zoe asked Ginny before she could disappear too.

"You know," the redhead told her, her brown eyes holding a glimmer of contempt, "An insert. It's pretty obvious. Excuse me for now, though – I'm going back to sleep."

"All right," Zoe said faintly, and Ginny disappeared behind the crimson curtains around her bed as well. Zoe looked at the closed curtains on all the beds with pursed lips. What kind of warm Gryffindor welcome was that? It was like they all instantaneously disliked her or something. Zoe had been under the impression that Ginny was really nice and kind of timid, judging by the second book. The things you learn about people. Zoe shook her head sadly and dug through her trunk for some normal clothes.

No, Zoe decided as she pulled a pink T-shirt over her head, smoothing out her now long, gently curled hair before slipping on a pair of relatively normal jeans, Ginny must have just been tired. She had been woken up pretty early, after all. Zoe's watch read six thirty in the morning – she certainly wouldn't have gotten up at this hour should she still be at home.

She wondered what to do about breakfast. She wasn't starving, and she didn't want to go down alone (how was she supposed to find the Great Hall by herself, anyway?) so she decided she'd look through her schoolbooks and wait for everyone else to get ready so she could eat with them. That is, if they didn't act like they had been when Ginny said Zoe was one of 'them'. So Dumbledore was right…there really had been people like her here before. Had they done something to make everyone else dislike them? Was that why the girls had acted so strangely? Hmm.

Zoe was struggling to understand the concept of a Summoning Charm, which she was reading about in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4, when the other girls began to wake up and get ready. Zoe looked up and smiled brightly at them as they climbed out of bed, but only Ginny even nodded at her in return. Zoe's grin dimmed and faded. This was somewhat disheartening.

And she wasn't the only one being ignored, she realized with a jolt as she looked around somewhat desperately for a friendly face. The girl in the bed next to her was shrinking against the wall as if afraid of the other girls, scooping up some clothes and diving behind her hangings in the space of about two seconds. Zoe only caught a glimpse of amazingly long, pure-white hair and wide amber eyes before the hangings were closed, blocking the strange girl from her view.

"Hey," she said, trying to catch the other girls' attention.

"Hmm?" the girl with short, dark hair responded gruffly.

"Um…is she – the girl behind the hangings, I mean – is she…?"

"An insert like you?" the dark haired girl asked bluntly, turning to look at her. "Yeah."

"Oh," Zoe said quietly, flinching under the girl's hard stare. She wasn't completely deterred, though, and asked, "What's your name?"

"Emily," was the short reply, and the girl with brown hair from earlier spoke up for the first time, saying, "My name's Morgan. And I think you know Ginny already."

"I'm Zoe."

"Right."

The girls dispersed rather quickly. Zoe was about to follow them, but her eyes were drawn to the closed hangings. She walked up to them and said, "Hello?"

First no one answered, but then a small voice asked in a whisper, "Did they all leave?"

"Yes," Zoe told her, perplexed by the question. "Why?"

The girl behind the hangings wrenched them open and looked around, clearly relieved. Zoe was taken aback by her appearance. The girl was astonishingly pretty, her white hair thick and straight and reaching her hips, and her face was delicately structured.

"Why?" she asked, her voice a little bolder, "Because I can't come out with them around is why! Can't you tell they hate me? They hate everyone like us!"

"What are you talking about?" Zoe sputtered, thrown by the outburst. How could they hate this girl? How could anyone hate this girl? Well…there was one way.

"Oh," Zoe said knowingly. "Did you steal one of their boyfriends or something?"

Now it was the other girl's turn to look disbelieving.

"Are you kidding? When I said 'they', I meant everyone. Boys, too."

Zoe shook her head, giving the girl a strange look.

"Who are you?" she asked, for lack of a better question.

"I'm Bella Lyons. I came here two weeks ago, and I'm this close to leaving!"

Bella held up her thumb and index finger about a centimeter apart to demonstrate. Her amber eyes were wild and distressed.

"What?" Zoe exclaimed, flabbergasted. "Why on earth would you want to leave? It can't be that bad! So what if the other girls aren't nice to you – I'm sure there are lots of distractions, like classes. I can't wait to start classes."

Bella shook her head at Zoe's enthusiasm.

"Are you kidding? The classes are terrible! Even my old math class wasn't as hard as Herbology, and that's supposed to be the easiest subject! I'm probably failing just about everything right now."

"I'm sure all it takes is practice."

"No, it's because I wasn't here for the past three years! I'm not used to using a wand or saying the spells. Do you know how hard they are to pronounce? You need background to be able to do well at all, and I don't have it. Neither do you – just watch. You're going to hate it as much as I do."

"Well, if you hate it," Zoe said, trying to be reasonable despite Bella's ranting, "Why don't you just ask to leave? You're not trapped here."

"Because," and for the first time Bella's face relaxed, taking on a dreamy expression, "I've seen Roger Davies. He's so…so…wow. No matter how bad it is here, I'm going to stick with it until I can really talk to him, maybe even date him…"

Zoe grinned, reminded of herself and her crush on Harry.

"I can understand that. I want to meet Harry Potter so badly…"

"Harry Potter?" Bella frowned. "He's not really that cute."

"Are you insane? Have you seen the movie?"

"That's Daniel Radcliffe," Bella told her shortly, "Not the real thing."

"Well…whatever."

Zoe was flustered. Of course she knew Daniel Radcliffe wasn't Harry Potter – she wasn't an idiot. But she had always pictured them as looking at least similar. How could you do all the amazing things Harry did and not be at least somewhat drop-dead gorgeous? You couldn't. It was against all natural laws. Or at least…it was against all of Zoe's natural laws.

"Do you want to have breakfast?" she asked Bella, suddenly remembering that she was hungry. "You know your way around, right?"

"I'll show you, but I'm not really hungry." The panicked look was back on her face. "You don't mind, do you?"

"No." Maybe Zoe could sit with…sigh…Harry.

It was a long, somewhat complicated route to get to the Great Hall. Zoe found herself wishing she'd brought along a notepad so she could write down the directions. Bella managed to lead them down without mishap, however, and deposited Zoe at the huge double doors.

"I'll be, um, in the library," Bella told her, her posture slumping as if she was trying to disappear, or at least take up as little space as possible. "Ask someone how to get there if you need me."

"I'll at least come up to talk to you," Zoe said brightly, her mood greatly improved by the prospect of food and canon character sightings. "I hope we can be friends."

"If I stick around, sure," Bella said hurriedly, and bolted as two older boys past and sent them cold glances. Zoe frowned after the boys and entered the Hall, gasping in awe at the sight of the high ceiling, which was deep blue and had large, puffy clouds rolling across it just like the sky she could see outside the windows. If the ceiling wasn't amazing enough, the sheer size of the room certainly was: it was massive. Zoe's whole house could have fit in there with plenty of room to spare.

She scanned the tables, looking for a familiar face so she could determine which belonged to which House. A girl with very bushy brown hair passed her, heading purposefully towards the table on the far right. Zoe grinned. She would have no trouble recognizing Hermione, that was for sure. She followed her, though she was a little disappointed when she sat down by an unremarkable, dark-haired boy and not…wait.

The boy on the other side of Hermione was gangly, had bright red hair, and his face was covered in freckles. The resemblance to Ginny was astonishing. It had to be Ron! So the other boy must be…

The boy in question lifted his head to say something to Hermione, and Zoe saw the round glasses, green eyes, and the scar on his forehead.

But…but…he was so NOT drop-dead gorgeous! He wasn't really unattractive, but he certainly wasn't the extremely cute boy she'd always imagined. He was so short, probably no taller than her! And scrawny – where was the lean, tanned, Quidditch-toned body?

"What the HELL?" she exclaimed aloud. The voices around her quieted and she found herself under the scrutiny of practically everyone in the Hall.

-

a/n: I'm sorry, this chapter was pretty slow, wasn't it? Once Zoe actually starts taking classes and all that (starts next chapter) things will begin to get a little more amusing. As I go on, there will be subtle references to clichés, Mary Sue-related and others, but nothing too preachy or cluttered, I promise – things like that tend to lose all semblance of a plot, and anyway, I don't want to really offend anyone. The whole point of this is fun, so don't take any of it too seriously. And I'm not going to be taking examples from any particular stories, so any resemblance is coincidental. Leave a review if you have a comment, question, or constructive criticism – I take it all. Thanks for reading!